


we built this house with our hands

by openended



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: (sort of. very very very early stages.), Developing Friendships, Fire, Gen, Mages and Templars, Orphans, Pre-Game(s), Protectiveness, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:10:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3196523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/pseuds/openended
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Ariadne Trevelyan calls Cullen on his Templar bullshit, and we see just how terrifying mages can be when you hurt someone they care about.</p><p>warnings for: mentions of past rape (which Cullen is <i>not</i> involved with), choking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we built this house with our hands

**Author's Note:**

> This story used to be part of my Ariadne Trevelyan series [Bomb In A Birdcage](http://archiveofourown.org/series/205640). It no longer fits with the canon I've built for her around this incident, so it's removed from the series. I may orphan it at some point, but I'm not ready to. 
> 
> A contextual note: in Ariadne's canon, Cullen is transferred to the Ostwick Circle after the events of Kinloch Hold and spends some time there before being transferred again to Kirkwall.

He hadn’t intended to stop at Trevelyan’s door. His watch has him walk down her hallway and five others, her hall isn’t special. But her door is open, firelight flickering from inside, and something about her has been bothering him since he arrived last month.

Her room is tiny, but she’s a senior mage and so granted her own. Colorful tapestries brighten up the stone walls, pale bedsheets (unmade, he observes; pillows astray and blankets tangled at the foot) keep the room light and airy. She’s left the windows open despite the slight chill of the oncoming autumn - her room’s warm enough with the silently-roaring fire. He almost forgets he’s in the Circle Tower.

Sitting cross-legged on her bed, bent over a notebook, Trevelyan doesn’t look the least bit dangerous, even less so for her bare feet and bedclothes. Her staff leans against the wall beside her bed, and the quiet warm fire is most certainly magic. She’s tall and thin and looks harmless, but he’s seen her in the practice rooms, all fire and explosion.

“Are you just going to stand there, Ser Cullen?”

He startles. He’s been staring, and he’s been staring while standing inside her room. Leaving now without a word would certainly be the less awkward choice for him tonight, but would likely result in embarrassment later. Trevelyan has a way about her. So he says what’s been at the forefront of his mind for weeks.

“You don’t seem to like me much.”

She doesn’t look up from her writing, though her pen’s movements have paused.

“I don’t,” she says. “Though I was unaware that my opinion mattered to you. Are you in the habit of judging your worth on the opinions of someone you believe less than you?” Now she looks up, and fixes her emerald eyes on him in a stare.

“Ah,” he stammers, trying to stall for enough time that he can develop a response. “I…”

She holds up a hand, saving him from further stumbling. At least now he knows to anticipate her unfiltered words. He braces himself.

“I understand why the Templars exist, and I don't necessarily disagree with that. Your specific presence is largely unobjectionable to me, and I am grateful that you are thus far not one of the abusive little shits we’ve had in the past.”

The way she spits out _abusive little shits_ , he wonders if she was Lockland’s victim. He’s not left wondering for long: the raw pain is clear on her face, either too much to hide, or she’s intentionally allowing him to see.

She continues, letting the knowledge that his predecessor raped her hang between them unaddressed. “But if you’ve not noticed, there are children around. Impressionable children in their formative years who hear far more than you think or want.” She swallows, and sets her notebook to the side.

“I…”

“The role of the Templars is to protect the outside world from mages. But is it also not part of your role to protect mages from the world?”

He nods, and doesn’t try to speak.

“Then you failed. You harm every mage here each time you say those words, especially the children. They hear that they are less, that they are not worthy, and that they are not people. And they hear it over and over again from your lips, and they begin to believe it themselves.”

She pauses and runs her pale fingers through deep red hair. “You would do well to remember that we mages, even the little ones, can protect ourselves from physical attack. But not all of us can protect ourselves from thoughts that crawl under our skin, left behind by a careless, thoughtless Templar who did not even glance around him to see who might be listening. So no, Ser Cullen. I do not like you.”

He could easily have her locked up or shackled for such talk. With her shoulders straight and chin raised, she certainly seems to expect it. But he won’t, and won’t even report her for this. He began the conversation, and she answered the question he asked. He would be wrong to charge her for being honest.

“If you are not going to punish me for disliking you, then I’d quite like to sleep now. Please leave, and shut the door on your way out.”

Cullen nods, and takes his leave. “Sleep well, Lady Trevelyan.”

“And you as well, Ser Cullen. I hope your dreams are less tormented tonight.”

He hears the last just as he closes her door. He wonders how she knew. Expert guess work, spies, maybe an unfamiliar Fade ability. Perhaps he’ll ask tomorrow night.

He doesn't.

***

She’s twenty-four when she takes over teaching Inferno magic. He knows her story - parents lost to a fire when she was three, taken in by the Chantry’s orphanage, shipped off to the Circle at eight, refused to even touch magic for five years for fear of the flames - and is unsurprised by her posture shift when she holds a fireball in her bare hand.

She’s still afraid of her magic, but she’s in control of it now. She controls the fire, not the other way around.

She hurls the fireball against the wall and it explodes impressively in a shower of sparks and flames, quickly doused by a wave of her assistant’s staff and a fountain of water.

He’s careful to filter his words around her; he’s taken her scolding in stride and ensured no one can hear him when his raises his feelings on mages. Only with other Templars does he talk about his worries and concerns, his true beliefs, now.

Her gaze lands on him standing in the corner, and her eyes narrow in anger, her lips turn downward into a frown. He wonders what he’s done now, and his hand grips the pommel of his sword in anticipation.

But one of her charges - a small girl, maybe eight, with a head of unruly brown curls - asks a question, and Trevelyan’s eyes widen again and her shoulders relax. She smiles at the girl and patiently explains that non-burning fire is possible, and so is containment, but a subject for much later study.

She sets her students to practicing, just creating a tiny spark with their fingers. She looks back at him, her hands on a boy’s shoulders as she encourages him to relax into the spark, and Cullen fears that if she ever were to let loose her powers on him, she’d use the burning kind of fire.

The girl with the question produces a much bigger spark than planned, and she startles at the flames suddenly in front of her face. Trevelyan casts a quick barrier around the girl and rushes to her side, taking control of the fire. She closes her hand around the flames, extinguishing them into a puff of smoke.

“Back to work, please,” she tells her gaping and awestruck students, and takes the now-crying girl aside. She kneels in front of her and wipes the girl’s cheeks. “When I first started, I had so much trouble controlling my powers that I didn’t have eyebrows for three years,” she whispers conspiratorially.

The girl sniffles and looks up, almost unsure what to do with this secret. “Really?”

“Mmhm.” Trevelyan brushes her hair aside and points to a scar on her left temple. “See this? Fire Mine that I aimed poorly and blew up the First Enchanter’s bookcase. Books flying everywhere; some dull bit of history knocked me in the head.”

Cullen knows for a fact that it was not the First Enchanter’s bookcase, but a Darkspawn attack near the end of the Blight. But the bookcase is a much more comforting story for the girl.

“But you’re _good_ ,” she sniffles.

“I am _now_. After practicing. Lots and lots of practice. And being comfortable smelling vaguely like singed robes.”

That gets a laugh from the girl, and Trevelyan taps her nose and sends her back to work. She catches his eye and arches an eyebrow, as if to say _see?_

He nods, even though he doesn’t.

He's been sleeping better since she slipped him a pouch of tea during evening meal the other night. Her handwritten note - spiky, sharp, individual letters, not the flowing curves he’d expected - had said that he looked terrible, and the hollows under his eyes could just about hold soup, and so to please, for the love of Andraste, drink some of this and get a night’s sleep.

Trevelyan still scares him, and she still doesn’t like him, but his dreams have subsided.

***

The girl’s name is Miranda, and she shows a remarkable aptitude for the Inferno school. Trevelyan takes her under her private tutelage, and she grows even stronger.

On the eve of Miranda’s ninth birthday, Cullen’s drawn to watch over her Harrowing. Trevelyan whispers encouragement in the girl’s ear, full of the confidence and faith Miranda herself doesn’t have.

In the end, though it’s near enough that he draws his sword and hovers the point above Miranda’s throat, he does not need to kill her.

He has precisely five and a half hours to feel proud that he did not need to end a young girl’s life before he’s the one with his life in someone else’s hands.

“ _You_.” Trevelyan spits the moment she enters the Great Hall for breakfast and lays eyes on him.

His hand goes to his sword, but he’s not fast enough. She’s in front of him in a blink, dark eyes narrowed to angry slits as she crowds him against the wall, so close he can’t possibly draw even his dagger. The air around her shimmers and he begins to sweat from the heat building and emanating from her body.

Templars rush to his aid, armor and swords clanking, but with a sharp twist of her hand, a wall of fire erupts behind her. Roaring and sparking, a manifestation of her fury, the flames rise to the ceiling and send his would-be saviors stumbling backward.

“I warned you,” she growls, “I warned you not to spew your venomous beliefs where they could hear.”

“I didn’t,” he bites back. “I’ve not said a word.”

Her hand shoots out and closes around his throat. Her fingertips burn, but she doesn’t squeeze, doesn’t crush him to his death, merely holds the threat near.

“She _heard_ you, you miserable little shit.”

“Who?!”

“Miranda! As she was leaving the Fade. She heard you say that mages aren’t worth the Harrowing and the chance you give them. She heard you and when she should be proud and excited that she came out of the Fade herself and in one piece, she’s in tears and refusing to pick up her staff because the man who swore to protect her doesn’t think she’s worth his attentions for even _an hour_.”

Now her fingers start to tighten, burning stronger as he struggles to breathe. He wants to defend himself, counter her words or at least push her away, but he's losing his grip on consciousness.

Her mouth curls upward in a sneer and the fire roars even hotter behind her. “You may not be a rapist like the pig you replaced but you’ve still dealt your damage.”

His eyes widen as her fingers dig into his skin, and he starts to see stars.

“Ariadne!” First Enchanter Cora’s voice booms over the fire’s roar. “ _Stand down_.”

Trevelyan immediately releases her grip and steps away. WIth a wave of her hand, she clears the fire. A few hanging tapestries are singed on the edges, but the rest of the Hall remains unharmed.

Cullen doubles over and coughs violently as air rushes back his lungs. He passes his fingers over his throat: his skin hurts to the touch, undoubtedly burned and needing attention, but he can breathe again and she doesn’t appear to have done any permanent harm.

Two Templars wrestle her hands behind her back, fitting them into shackles so she cannot cast her spells. Cora and Knight-Commander Edward have cleared the Hall, and stand waiting near its door. She goes with them willingly, her shoulders square and head high.

If she doesn’t hang for this, she’ll at least be made Tranquil.

He watches her leave without even a look back at him, and tries to loosen his collar.

***

In the end, he is given the choice. He is the one she harmed, and he is allowed to choose her fate.

It’s a harder choice than he thought, not an easy decision when Edward presents it to him, and he requests time to think. He loses a few friends for not immediately sending her to the gallows, even more for not invoking Tranquility.

But Miranda hides behind her taller friends when she sees him now; she no longer smiles when he passes her in the hall but hurries past, especially if she’s alone, and he wonders if Trevelyan didn’t have a point.

He visits her in her cell, two weeks later, still without a decision.

“Come to gloat, Ser Cullen?” She stretches her arms over her head. Her shackles have been removed; she knows better than to try any magic while she’s locked in a solitary prison cell.

Surprisingly, he trusts that he’s safe around her, even though their last encounter ended with her palmprint burned on his throat. He’s healing, but collars are still uncomfortable and he’s been given leave to not wear his gorget for the time.

“I came to ask a question, if that’s alright.”

She laughs at him and gestures to the bars between them. “I couldn’t stop you even if it weren’t. Ask away, Templar.”

He would have left had she asked but she didn’t, and so he drags over a rickety three-legged stool and sits. “Why did you do it?”

“I’ve done many things. You’ll have to be more specific.”

He purses his lips; she’s being intentionally difficult, but he plays along. “Why attack me? Why be so defensive of the girl -”

“Miranda.”

“ _Miranda_ that you would attack a Templar and risk Tranquility or death?”

She’s silent for a while, near to the point of discomfort for him.

“The difference between us is that she grew up with a family,” she starts quietly. “Parents who loved her, protected her. A brother who cared about her, despite that he once cut off all her hair in the middle of the night. My family died when I was small, I barely remember them. What I do remember is people scoffing at the little Chantry orphan, and nobody wanting me. I was barely better than the pickpocket street urchins, even as I pinned notices to the Chantry board.”

She exhales softly. “When I came to the Circle, I’d already spent years hearing and believing that I was less. Instead of absorbing the Templars’ beliefs, I was able to build my own walls against them, because I already knew what it felt like to have someone tell you that you’re worthless.”

She turns her head slightly to face him. “Miranda, and a lot of the other children, come from families. They may not be perfect, and they may not even be _good_ families, but most were at least cared for, and valued by someone. They shouldn’t have to know how it feels to be told that they're nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” he says as her words sink in. And he means it.

She laughs softly and shakes her head. “You’re sworn to protect us, Cullen. Not only protect the world from us, but us from the world. You’re part of the world we should be protected _from_ , not just the world that needs protecting from us.”

“I am sorry,” he repeats.

“Thank you,” she says. “But I’m not the one who needs your apology. And it means nothing if you do not act upon it.”

After a lengthy silence, he makes his decision and stands. He unhooks the keyring from the wall.

Her eyes widen, curious and slightly alarmed. “What are you doing?”

He unlocks her cell and opens the door. “Return to your teaching, Ariadne.”

She stands, but doesn’t leave the confines of her cell. “They’ll think I broke out.”

“Then I’ll go first. Shall I whistle when it’s safe?”

She snorts and rolls her eyes. “I still don’t like you.”

“I don’t like you, either. This burn is taking ages to heal.”

She tentatively steps out of the cell. “I can help with that, you know. I know a thing or two about healing burns caused by my magic.”

He releases the door and it clangs shut. “It’s not more tea, is it?”

“No, it’s a poultice. And if you’re going to mock my help, you can heal at a normal rate.”

He nods, accepting her assistance; after all, the tea did work wonders. “I’ll inform the Knight-Commander that I’ve released you.”

Trevelyan smiles, small and quiet, barely noticeable in the dim dungeon light, but still a smile. “Thank you.”

“And,” he pauses on the steps and turns back to her, “I will apologize to Miranda.”

Her smile widens. “Thank you.”

 


End file.
